What were the managers thinking with this set of rules? (job, company)

[MillennialUrbanist]

Originally Posted by Ih2puo

Little people will never understand the way the world works.

"Looking for something". Suuuurrrreeeee.

It would be fine if you wanted to present the managers' point of view on this workplace, but come on now, really?

Just take my word for it. Equipment pieces in storage rooms were sorted by date of arrival on site; the bosses wanted it that way. Suggesting another way of organizing equipment was considered insubordination, which I learned the hard way. While equipment pieces on work orders were listed by vendor and model, oftentimes inaccurately. So it wasn't uncommon to have to dig through many bins to find the part you need for your work order. Rinse, lather, repeat for other parts on the same work order, kept in other storage rooms a few hundred feet away or on another floor altogether.

Then again, I don't think you're looking for truth or information here. You just want to be smug, right?

[froglipz]

Sounds like poor management and not a good place to be at!

[Nov3]

I was the gatekeeper at our company. All inventory was to be accounted for. Yes they installed cameras and a centralized room. The door had a lock. I have much respect for IT and their reasonings in immediate needs for products. Yet let's say..most would grab and run. The manager of IT came to our office and took all computer products. No transfer or documentation.....just his verification that yes he brought them back to main Corp. Fast forward...inventory is off 75k. I was written up for it. Now that is crazy. Corp knew that the manager took it...but they said....you are the gatekeeper...in which I said...a gatekeeper when it's convenient to hold someone accountable. The IT manager supersedes authority that when I questioned him he said...I'll handle it. And he did! He let me be the fall guy.

A more central location would be more viable for IT. preset up computers tagged ... supplies right there. One spot..with scan item technology when removed. All our equipment/parts / supplies were barcode.

Server setup and installation can take an entire day ...not to mention the physical wiring and air settings. Computers can be admin accessed...once physically setup at office location. Provided the main software was pre tested and staged for implementation.

Yes I think your IT policy is overkill... and tail chasing...time wasted.

[Ron61]

As a manager in a very large company,I can only guess at the money being wasted by this inefficient set up. If the IT dept is ran like this one has to wonder how the rest of the business categories are doing. I would assess this as a culture of fear and control. Like stepping back in time 50 years in management styles.

[MillennialUrbanist]

Originally Posted by Nov3

A more central location would be more viable for IT. preset up computers tagged ... supplies right there. One spot..with scan item technology when removed. All our equipment/parts / supplies were barcode.

It'd be a pipe dream at my old job. A long-time employee suggested it, long before I started. He was the boss's favorite, so he got off with a vehement "no". I suggested it a few months into my job; I got written up for insubordination. My boss was "nice enough" to keep it an internal write-up that stayed within IT, rather than an official write-up that went to his friends in HR. Normally, insubordination counted as official.

It sounds like your way to give someone a new monitor would go like this.
1. Go to the storage room and check out the monitor to yourself. Take a cart if needed.
2. Go to the user's desk and set up the new monitor there.
3. (Optional) Return the cart if you took it.

In my case, it would be more like this.
1. Go to the Main Storage Room to get the Secondary Storage Room key.
2. Go to the Secondary Storage Room to get the key the Warehouse key.
3. Go to the Warehouse to get the cart.
4. Go back to the Secondary Storage Room, to get the monitor and return the Warehouse key.
6. Go back to the Main Storage Room to return the Secondary Storage Room key.
7. Go to the user's desk and set up the new monitor there.
8. Go to the Main Storage Room to get the Secondary Storage Room key.
9. Go to the Secondary Storage Room to get the key the Warehouse key.
10. Go to the Warehouse to return the cart.
11. Go back to the Secondary Storage Room to return the Warehouse key.
12. Go back to the Main Storage Room to return the Secondary Storage Room key.
13. Meet with the boss to get written up, because all these steps took over an hour to finish. This write-up was normally internal.

The slow elevators and lack of access to stairs used up any time I saved by running (which was prohibited officially, but almost never enforced in practice). Very efficient indeed!

[North Beach Person]

Some of it sounds as though there were theft and/or breakage problems at some point.

Much of the rest is just poor facility usage.

[stanley-88888888]

I would like to vacation there:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/work-...ake-month.html

[reneeh63]

No doubt it was all pieced together at different points in time by different people. Probably over the years the floor plan changed or maybe even the floor location for your group changed? So crap got scattered everywhere.

What strikes me as the worst is all the seemingly unnecessary security measures that everything is locked up and in separate rooms and key access is difficult and even the key handoff is regulated. Do you work within a prison?! Seriously...most office settings don't require such security...

I remember maybe 10 or more years ago the hardware I used at work was better than what I had for myself at home. But NOW? My stuff is way better and more powerful...I'm not going to steal a laptop from work...or a keyboard, or a mouse...so that level of security is overkill.

[MillennialUrbanist]

Originally Posted by reneeh63

No doubt it was all pieced together at different points in time by different people. Probably over the years the floor plan changed or maybe even the floor location for your group changed? So crap got scattered everywhere.
...
Do you work within a prison?!

This is actually true. I spoke to the boss's favorite, who's been with the company for over 10 years, and he confirmed that. The company used to occupy the first two floors of the building. Then they vacated the first floor, and took over the third floor when another company vacated it. The IT department had to change floors as well, which meant their phone system had to be migrated. So the new problem was this: the phone systems on each floor are wired differently: one is VOIP and the other is PSTN, which made it very difficult to create a unified door security system. That's why the keys and the equipment are so scattered. Then again, nothing stopped anyone from putting manual numeric locks on all storage rooms, and encoding them with close-ranging numbers (example: 99991 for Main, 99992 for Secondary, etc). But that would actually make sense, and management wouldn't stand for it.

On top of that, the floor plans changes happened once every few years; I even witnessed a minor one myself, when a conference room was converted into an executive office, and a phone charging area was set up in the hallway (which the IT boss didn't let people use, "because it's a personal use of work resources"). In fact, if you looked at some parts of the office, you could see walls that looked tacked-on, ceiling tiles in a different shade of white where a wall was taken down, or a door that looked like it doesn't belong. So maybe that's how storage rooms got so scattered around.

Oh, and I didn't work in a prison. It just felt like one, lol. It was a run-of-the-mill corporate environment. Although a few non-IT employees that I talked to regularly used prison terminology ("chow", "rec yard", etc.) to refer to office areas.

[JanND]

Sounds like it was planned to prevent theft. Don't like the rules, work elsewhere. End of.